Thursday, January 15, 2009

Choices

My children deserve to know something. It is something that I think I've taken for granted that they knew and that I hope I demonstrate in a hundred different ways in their daily lives but that I don't know if I have expressed in so many words.

It is this.

They are the most important choice I have ever made in my life.

And it has been just that. A choice.

I have worked hard to help them understand that they are responsible for their choices and that there are always consequences. Well, I am also responsible for mine. I chose each of them over every other choice available to me. (And yes, kiddos, there were others.) I continue to choose them. Sometimes in the day to day grind of assuming responsibility for my choices (and their laundry, their feeding, and their general upkeep) I fear that I have not conveyed to them the importance of that choice and I need for them to understand it. Especially my daughters.

I need them to know that I made that choice to have each of them. Knowing that there would be a cost and that I have paid, and continue to pay it, gladly.

I made that choice four times. Conciously, joyfully. Fully aware and cognizant.